Iraq War

While Whitney Terrell was writing The King of Kings County, a novel based in 1950s Kansas, America was invading Iraq. His strong feelings about the war drove him to embed with reporters in Iraq, and the result is his latest novel about war, companionship and the folly of combat.

Logan Black is an Iraq War veteran and an actor. Last year he moved Kansas City Fringe Festival audiences with Bond: A Soldier and His Dog, a one-act play he wrote about his relationship with a specialized search dog named Diego.

With another run for the show this month, however, Black has faced a tough reality, with implications for the play’s future: Diego hasn't been well.

Black was Diego's handler. Together, they cleared roads of roadside bombs and searched homes and discovered other stockpiles of ordnance.

Her powerful words were enough for the government of Saddam Hussein to declare her an enemy. For Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, poetry has charted and changed the course of her life in significant ways. On this edition of Up To Date, we discuss the experience of relaying her personal experiences into verse and hear some of her stark and poignant poetry.

When you think of Iraq and Afghanistan, you think of American soldiers in uniform, but what may surprise you is how many private contractors are there too. In recent years, the ratio of contractors to uniformed soldiers has been 10 to one.

On Wednesday's Up to Date, we talk with a journalist about the increase in these forces and why relying on them so much might not be a good idea.

Nearly two million active duty U.S. servicemen and women are due back home by the end of this year. Many have struggled to reintegrate, but few more profoundly, or more publicly, than Tomas Young of Kansas City. Young now says he’s ready to take his own life, but not before making one more stand against the war that wrecked his body.